“He loved her all he could; but he couldn't love her very much.”

“Quinn talked with her entire body: arms, eyes, shoulders, mouth. She was performance art, so alive that sometimes he argued with her just so he could watch her flush and gesture.”

“She was setting out china cups in their saucers, her long pale hands almost the same color as the cream china. "How do you take yours?""Four creams, two sugars," Riley said, still mesmerized by her.She stopped with a small waxed carton in her hand. "Really?""He's very young," Gabe said. "I take mine black.""He's very boring," Riley said. "Is that real cream?”

“Allie put her chin on his shoulder to look into the carton. He had great shoulders and Chinese food. At the moment, he was the perfect man.”

“He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.My mama warned me about guys like you.He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.“Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.”

“Say it,” she said, and he said, “I love you. I’ll always love you. Forever. It’s a life sentence. Now put the damn ring on.”

“- Teach me something new, she said, and he bent her back onto the bed and she shivered as his body slid against hers.- Okay, Phin said. But pay attention, Julie Ann, there'll be a quiz.”